Jesus solves the problem of morality
If real moral obligation does not exist, we have no reason to complain about injustice in the world or any of the world’s “wrongs.” If human trafficking, for example, is not “wrong,” what is our basis for opposing it? Therefore, real moral obligation must exist.
However, moral obligation isn’t just floating around in space somewhere, as if it were some kind of a cloud we could observe or an entity we could measure. And it doesn’t seem to be a mere human convention, as if we could vote on right and wrong. If we voted to legalize human trafficking, that would not make it right. For example, as late as the eighteenth century in the west, slavery was normal business practice,1 even though people objected to its practice on the basis of conscience—and to the appeal that people are made in the image of God and should not be treated that way.2 Morality therefore is a form of reality that is based on something non-material. From where did it come? What is the nature of its existence? How is it that we humans seem so universally to be aware of it? This comes under the category of the philosophical problem of morality.
The reality of Jesus and the truth of the Bible explain very well the existence of non-material morality and humans’ near-universal perception of it: human beings are made in the image of God, and so we have a perception that non-material reality (God) exists and that we humans reflect more or less imperfectly the character of God, just as we have a perception that mountains are high in elevation, even if we haven’t climbed one. God is holy and perfect morally,3 and we have an intuitive, albeit clouded, understanding of his moral perfection. At this point in the argument, one need not believe that Jesus and the Bible are the only explanations for the existence of morality, merely that they are an explanation.
The framers of the American Declaration of Independence came to a similar conclusion: the rights enjoyed by human beings—and these are outlined as moral rights—those of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, are not based upon whim, consensus, or progressive thought. Rather, our rights are endowed on us by our Creator and thus are “unalienable.”
The existence of the non-material Law of Human Nature and morality opens a door on a non-material world, without which we humans can’t function. No matter in what human culture we find ourselves, we certainly need our awareness of right and wrong in order to live in this world, as acclaimed social psychologist Jonathan Haidt maintained. As a believer in cultural and biological evolution, he would maintain human cultures need moral awareness for “survival value.” His idea is not incompatible with the observation that our human moral awareness is an expression of the imago Dei, the image of God, in each of us. Therefore, the existence of the non-material Law of Human Nature counts for (and not against) the reality of Jesus and the truth of the Bible.
Further, the biblical idea of the imago Dei (image of God) explains how we humans can one moment be noble and majestic and the next so paradoxically and miserably depraved. Paired with the doctrine of sin as taught in the Bible, we can see how the magnificent image of God in human beings can become tainted and spoiled. French mathematician, physicist, logician, and one of the founding fathers of the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) persuasively stated the position. The biblical portrayal of human beings made in the image of God who are also tainted by sin has great explanatory power as regards the human condition.
- Slavery still is a global problem today.
- Dickson, Bullies and Saints: An Honest Look at the Good and Evil of Christian History, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Reflective, 2021, pp. 30-33, 56, 111-113
- God’s perfect goodness is noted throughout the Bible. For example, “When tempted, no one should say, ‘God is tempting me.’ For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone” (James 1:13).
This blog article is an excerpt from my book: Five Languages of Evidence: How to Speak about Reasons for Christianity in a Post-truth World. Not yet published; available upon request.